MRC - Wildfire (TR-107) [1987-]Contributed by John Lee  Brief: Construction: The nosecone was set aside to dry and the motor mount was taken up. The kit comes with a centering ring that is already split to accommodate the engine hook. When I test fit it though, it was clear that the slit was not wide enough. I opened it up a bit with an X-Acto knife so that it would fit. A slit was made in the motor tube 1/4" from one end and the hook was set in place. The split ring was then glued in place flush with the aft end. A retainer band was also glued over the forward end of the hook. The kit is intended for use with a tri-fold mount but I wasn't having any of that. I tied a Kevlar® harness around the motor mount and applied some glue to keep it in place. I then cut a slit in the forward centering ring to accommodate the Kevlar®. The forward ring though, is not mounted on the motor tube at this point. Instead, the motor mount is inserted into the aft end of the plastic fin can and glued in place with plastic cement. Then the forward ring is slipped over the part that protrudes from the forward end of the fin can and glued. The kit comes with three identical body tubes. One of them can be used as a payload bay. This would be the forward one. It is coupled to the tube behind with a plastic coupler. A screw eye was screwed into the coupler into the provided hole. This is actually more substantial than I had at first thought. The other two body tubes are joined together with a cardboard coupler. The kit comes with a single launch lug which is to be cut into 2 pieces. I used some rod to serve as a mandrel for cutting. I left both pieces on the rod and used it to apply the lugs straight. The lower one is almost even with the aft end and the other one is 5" forward. With the lugs in place, I glued the lower part of the BT to the fin can and fished the Kevlar® through. I tried to align the lugs with the engine hook. All that was left was the top BT. I glued the plastic coupler into the aft end and glued the NC to the forward one. I have no interest in launching payloads and the NC fit was a bit loose to begin with. The rocket was the put together and ready for finishing. PROs: Easy build. CONs: Centering rings not adequately cut for engine hook. BT extremely thin. Finishing: With the painting done, all that was left of the finishing was the stickers. I do not like crack and peel stickers. I prefer waterslide decals. That being said, the crack and peel stickers in this kit were of top quality and applied well. I had no trouble removing them from the sheets and they really dress up the rocket. After applying the stickers, the rocket sat around for almost 2 weeks waiting to be launched. When it was taken out of its protective box, I found that many of the stickers had popped up and that the rocket no longer looked as nice as it had. PROs: Simple, great stickers that really dress things up nicely. CONs: Stickers instead of waterslide decals. Construction Rating: 2 out of 5  Flight and Recovery: For the second flight, I tried a B6-4. This turns out to be a perfect motor for this rocket. Ejection occurred at apogee and the rocket recovered safely. A video of the second flight can be seen here. PROs: It flew well, if not spectacularly. CONs: None. Flight Rating: 3 out of 5 Summary: Overall Rating: 3 out of 5 Flight Log
What You Can Do
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